Well, Now I Feel Safe!

Me look for dark, scary people duct-taping plastic explosives under the Market Street Bridge and blowing it up so that nobody get to City Island for a game of Miniature Water Golf, the Great American Pasttime of Freedom Lovers and Astroturf Haters. (Is that two t's together? Pasttime? Me no afraid to misspell words!)

Me worry about no oil and small children and chicken pox outbreaks...uhh...smallpox outbreaks....and...chicken children...

Me so silly, me worry!

Why, I pick all the wrong things to be scareded of!

But there are smarty people who knows! They not wary of the obvious! They know that terrorists and bad people are trickety...wily...that they have much imagination on their hands and so much time in their evil hearts!

The smarty people protect me from those things that I not think are so dangerous and threaty-threaty.

The smarty people know better!

If you go flying somewhere WHOOSH! up in the sky, first you must take off all clothing and shoes, right down to just your gotchies and deodorant. And then take out your fillings because what if you removed them yourself in the jet bathroom and made very choking mercury amalgam gas by dropping the fillings into that blue toilet water stuff?

Then, you have to make your kiddies recite the Pledge of Allegiance and boy, oh, boy, let me tell you, if those little stinkers leave out the God part, you get a seat faaaaaar from cockpit where the flight attendants can keep an eye on your kids and no peanuts!

Then you give the big, smarty airport people all the luggage and wave good-bye, but not before covertly whispering to your Samsonite "be brave, be strong, my overstuffed comrade...name, rank, serial number...remember your waterboarding resistance training..."

And you think, "Naaaahhhhh...they won't open my luggage. They'll look at it through the X-ray, view the outlines of shorts and wool socks and an eyelash curler and a few scattered panty liners and the rest of my gotchies, and those professional baggage scanner people will only come to one conclusion: Suitcase of All-American Girl! Amen!"

But looka what I found in my luggage when I opened it in the hotel!

That's right. One of my bags was...

opened!

Observed! Watched! Tinkered with!

Coerced! Threatened! Abused!

Intimidated! Forcibly shuffled through!

Oh...the humiliation...

But here is the shocking part. Here is why I suddenly began to doubt my own intuition, my own ability to discern real threats and fears from the frets and bothers of a simpleton:

The piece of luggage they actually pulled aside for inspection, the piece of luggage singled-out from all nine of our checked bags was both times - there and back again - the suitcase that was filled with Raisin Bran.

That's right.

Raisin Bran. And Wheaties. And Crispix. You know...in those cunning little individual breakfast boxes? All that breakfast stuff I spirited down to Florida so that we wouldn't have to spend vacation assets on $15 Mickey Mouse waffles every morning.

Yeah.

Raisin Bran.

You never even suspected, did you?

You weren't even aware of the gristful villains lurking in your own kitchen, down the aisles of the local SuperFresh, were you?

They jiggled the napkins. And joggled the plastic spoons, checking them for eye-gouging potential.

(And me...worrying about sharp, pointy sticks poking eyes out.

I feel so...simpleminded....truly humbled.)

Anyway...as I said, not only was the Breakfast Baggage opened and inspected in the Baltimore airport, but also for the return trip from the Orlando airport.

I feel good knowing that the powers that be are taking seriously their sworn duty to keep the citizen safe...from...from...fiber.

Because you know? The previous week on another flight out of Orlando to Cincinnati, some guy ate a smuggled-on box of Grape Nuts and then tried to light his farts.

It's true.

Luckily, the passenger sitting next to him noticed the guy holding a piece of flint near his uplifted cheek and alerted a quick-thinking flight attendant who selflessly threw herself onto the guy's lap and smothered the potential...uh...

I can't believe I didn't catch on to where you were going (in your last post) until YOU TOLD US. I'm blaming it on the fact that you have daughters and I have sons. I am SO not on first-name basis with the Disney sluts. (pardon the harshness there, I love those movies with all my heart, it's just the impossibly perfect figures of those damn drawings that leave me a little snarky...)

Simple explanation here. The main active ingredient in Preparation H is petrolatum. Now, Bush being the oil lord that he is, you can understand why high fiber cereals would be considered to be a threat to freedom and the American Way Of Life. I'm amazaed they even let you walk out of the airport.

But they're watching you. And your grocery list...Whatever you don't, don't get caught with Grape Nuts in your pantry. We'll never see you again!

Florida, evidentally, is a hair-trigger, dangerous type of state. I'm glad I didn't make any jokes about the granola bar in my backpack.

Too soon?

Sorry.

On the topic of Disney Princesses...

sigh...

You know, I'm not proud to say that I just gave in. I tried buying those true-to-life dolls with no boobs and child-bearing hips...like me...but they only had one or two outfits that fit them well...like me...and my daughters got bored with the dolls' complaining about having to do laundry all the time and never getting to jet off to Paris or ride around in a pink Corvette...like me.

And Ms. Lisa, I don't know if you'll read this, but can I just say that the "real life" Disney Princesses had NOTHING on your boobs. And that has to be the strangest thing I've ever said to someone I've never met.

And if yous guys are wondering what the heck I'm going on about, check out Lisa's blog. Unless you are a married man. Because if your wife catches you looking at Lisa's buxom bon-bons, you're going to get a tug on your computer cord. And that ain't no euphamism.

Josette - Do you forget who's state you were headed to? You might recognize the name Bush on the Governor's stamp...could have something to do with that beefed-up secutiry on all flights coming or going to that state.

And by beef I of course mean idiotic, not the animal - because if you had actual beef, or even an entire steer, in your suitcase that would have probably been just fine. Damn the Mad Cow!

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